The present invention is in the technical field of identity verification. More particularly, the present invention is in the technical field of using mobile phones and other computing devices for identity verification.
In the U.S., the Transportation Services Administration (TSA) employs thousands of travel document checkers at airports. Unlike Customs & Immigration officers who are trained extensively in international travel documents and possess sophisticated document checking equipment, the average TSA document checker has a simple UV or black light, loupe magnifier, and limited training on document checking. Even the TSA admits that, given the hundreds, sometimes thousands of documents and multifarious document types a checker has to scrutinize each day, the limited time the document checker has to inspect each document, and fatigue relating to processing hundreds of documents continually, a person with malicious intent could easily forge a document that would get them past a TSA document checker.
At the same time, many a business traveler is weary of having to previously print a boarding pass and pull out their driver's license card and boarding pass going through airports. Paperless boarding passes—on mobile devices—are slowly becoming more mainstream now, although their adoption has been somewhat painful for the TSA and the traveler due to the limitations of the scanning mechanisms. The logical next step is for the driver's license, passport, or other identifying document to become adopted on mobile devices as well. Then the wallet can stay in the pocket and the mobile device can be used for ID check and boarding pass check at the same time.
If a mobile device-based ID could be verified in a fool-proof way by the TSA document checkers and frequent travelers could be encouraged to adopt mobile device based IDs, the job of verifying regular IDs would be made remarkably easier and more secure at the same time for the TSA document checkers. A number of additional benefits would become available to the TSA as well, because of the automation: automatic checking for or against terrorist watch lists, criminal convictions, etc.
End-users would be willing to pay a reasonable fee for the convenience of not having to pull out their wallets to get their IDs at the airports.
There are a number of challenges to get such a system put into place, though:                How to secure the driver license on the mobile device        How to satisfy the needs of the TSA such that they can accept the mobile device version in lieu of paper documents        How to ensure travelers of the privacy of their information        How to build a viable business out of it        
ID4Checkin™ is a novel system and service that addresses these challenges. Much of the research on identity documents, document authentication and verification in past few decades has been focused on paper- and plastic card-based identification.
There has been some recent adoption of technologies focused on electronic IDs based on smart chips such as the one embedded in the U.S. passport. E-passports typically embed some personally identifying information, such as fingerprint biometrics or portrait, in encrypted form within the smart chips. E-readers can decode the encrypted information for comparison with the passport holder's actual fingerprint or visage, for example.
The mobile revolution has simply passed the identification industry by—mainly because the revenues in the identification industry are largely focused on the production and vetting of paper- and plastic card-based identification. Mobile and computing devices now replace almost every card and implement that a person would carry in their wallet, except for the identification card.
The present invention (ID4Checkin) allows mobile and computing devices to be used for identification purposes. The focus is not on having all the identification information embedded into the device; rather, it is to provide a means for the traveler to “show” their identification to a TSA document checker or other authority using their mobile or computing device in a manner that inhibits counterfeit measures.